What is the title of my dream job? Actionable tips for a successful search

Updated: Mar 26

Figuring out the title of my dream job

Hopefully, you are here because you have already posed the question ‘What is my dream job?’ and managed to narrow down what your dream job needs to be to the size of a concise recipe. And now you’re looking for a way to translate all of that into an even shorter job title. Awesome!

And if you aren’t quite sure what your dream job looks like yet, have a look at the first and second parts of this article and give yourself a helping hand to figure it out easier. Don’t worry, this guide isn’t going anywhere – we’ll wait 😉

Are we all set to go? Cool.

Okay, so how do you turn a one-page description of the perfect job into its corresponding job title? It’s not the easiest task, we will admit as much. But anything great deserves the efforts to achieve it.

Fun fact, a month before I graduated university, one of my closest friends jokingly suggested that I should open an advice place, because a) I enjoy giving advice, especially about life development and the like, and b) because whoever I talked to seemed to already be “a happy customer”. Still, I was about to enter the job market with no clear idea of what my dream job is, or how to pay my rent. So, you know, I have experienced the recruitment war firsthand, and I survived.

And so will you. Let’s roll up the sleeves.

1. Consult Personality Types categories

So, have you heard of Personality Types? These are descriptions of a possible trajectory your life can take, and are usually organized around the core strength and drives (and combinations of) people have. The original concept comes from psychologist Carl Jung and his theory of psychology types, but this is where the connection with psychology and individual differences ends. In fact, you do not even need to do a personality test – just have a look at the list of possible personality types, and try to compare them with your job description. The only things we are going to use are the life trajectories, and the career path suggestions they make. Does that make sense?

My dream job should be aligned with the unique personality I have.

Comparing your dream job description to a personality type is one of the easiest ways to slim it down to a career orientation. First, you place your preferred activities, interactions, and dynamics, into a category that most closely resembles yourself. Then you receive adjectives that describe people from this personality type, and what type of work makes them thrive. Already a step closer to a job title, yes?

In the more popular (and free) online version of the MBTI test, there are 16 personality types, and each comprises certain characteristics. For example…

You can have the analysts.

You can choose from characters like the Architect. She is an imaginative and strategic thinker, who always has a plan for everything! If that doesn’t work, you can be the Logician. She is more on the innovative inventors’ side, and has an unparalleled thirst for knowledge. Or the Commander, who is a bold, creative, and maybe a stubborn leader. You can count on her to always find a way, or, in fact, make one.

You get the gist. There are three more broad categories, with 4 subtypes each. Have a pick!

Consulting personality types and figuring out what activities characterize you, or what the most common occupations for people from your type are, is a big leap forward. Each statement can trigger a lightbulb flashing. And if they don’t, at least you’re getting more and more pieces of the puzzle, which you will soon be able to put together completely.

2. Look through Career Guides

The next thing you can do if you are super set on finding the exact wording of your dream job, is to consult a career guide. Preferably ones that are related to the field you want your career to be in. Not that it would hurt a business graduate to look through “The Fine Artist’s career guide”, but it would probably not do her much good either.

Career guides are excellent for getting an overview of your industry, and figure out what direction you want to grow in. Usually, you would be able to find information like possible professional paths within the industry. Or what type of training, education, or professional qualifications you need to get into a career. There will also be a salary comparison between the different paths you could take, and some information about the types of tools or software a professional of that field operates with.

You can have a look through a career guide and compare your dream job description to the description of specific positions, and see if anything promising pops out.

And if you’re not entirely sure what industry you want to be a part of just yet, you can gain a little perspective by going onto online resource websites like the Occupational Outlook Handbook, or Glassdoor.

3. Consult “Fastest growing” lists

Okay, this is one way to approach the search for your dream job title – bottom up, or by comparing your description of the perfect job to actual positions outlines out there, and then finding companies that have these positions.

But that doesn’t work for some people. What you can do in that case, is switch the approach. Look for companies that operate in the market segment you want to work in, and then browse the positions these companies have.

The Inc 5000 is a list of the fastest-growing private companies on the US market. On this list you will find businesses that specialize in training the body, challenging the mind, breaking the boundaries of VR, or dabble in music, 3-D printing, and everything else new and exciting in the world today. These are the companies that are masters of marketing, innovation, and service. Going through the list can inspire you to do better than your peers, to try and work harder, and to grow both as a professional, and an individual.

And once you find a company whose mission and story you identify with, make some more research and find out what are the core positions that set the wheels and cogs of their business in motion. After all, companies are run by people, and you can find your future role as one of them.

The Breakout List is another excellent resource to get your search for a dream job title started. Since data is in abundance online, this site uses the available information and analyses the growth trajectories of new companies, ranging from start-ups to mid-size businesses. It provides lists about current superheroes in growth, and about predicted future superheroes (so, you can find out who is likely to be on the list in 2018). Breakout also houses some more obvious choices contenders, like AirBnB and TESLA, but the majority of companies you will find there are inspired young firms ready to take the market by storm.

So, go ahead, get closely acquainted with your industry, and get inspired for the dream job; it might just be among the ranks of these exciting new companies. 😊

4. Harness the power of Google!

You use Google tens of times a day to search for whatever strikes your fancy, but do you know how to really use Google? It can do so much more than guiding you to the nearest Domino’s pizza place. Maybe you are one of the enlightened ones, and you do know, but for the rest of us, who use Type à Enter and hope for the best, here is an eye opener.

Limit your search with quotation marks.

If your dream job includes using a skillset you have that is not super common, like “coaching coworkers”, and you want Google to find you job titles that require that specific skill, and not “coaching” or “coworkers”, put the phrase in quotation marks, and then press Enter. Without the quotes you will get a lot of irrelevant job listings like “life coach”, or “mini baseball league coach”…

If you have already gone through some researching, as suggested above, have identified a company you would like to work for, and want to see what they have for you that might match your dream job requirements, you can do the following.

Limit your search to only give you results within the company’s website.

Do the following. Type site: and add the company domain without putting a space. Like this, site:pg.com “brand manager”. This way, you will only get results from pg.com that have to do with brand management, which is a skill you want your dream job to use. Does that make sense? Cool.

What is my dream job? Search tips I

Find related companies to the one you’re interested in.

And, let’s imagine you found a company or a sector you think you might be interested in! Congratulations! Now you want to expand your search and find opportunities like this one, right? You can easily do it by typing related: into the search bar, and follow it with a copied URL of the company you found. Exactly like before, no spacing.

What is my dream job? Search tips II

See? All sorts of related websites pop up.

The cool thing is, these commands are completely versatile and once you learn how to use them well, you will likely go beyond the job search and will use them far more often. After all, they powerfully narrow down your results to something manageable and targeted.

5. Take a Career assessment test

And if nothing else works, and you still would like to get some suggestions on possible career paths and start building from there, take a career assessment test. Career tests are pretty good at narrowing down the possible career paths to few that would be most suited to your inclinations and passions, problem-solving style, communication style, and so forth.

‘What is the title of my dream job?’ is an important question in your career journey. Fantastic! We have now covered what makes up a dream job, how to define the dream job for yourself, and how to translate it into formal terms that describe actual work-place positions.

The next logical step is to learn how to most efficiently search for job opportunities and placements. And that will be the topic of our next article. Stay tuned 😉